


Light a Cigarette, Set a Fire in My Head Tonight

by metaphors



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: M/M, Two-Shot, have fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-17 22:39:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4683962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metaphors/pseuds/metaphors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"That's bad for your health, you know?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Heeey friends, this is just a random thing I wrote because yolo...
> 
> (The title is from "Trouble" by Halsey.)

"Here"

Tyler hands the money to the man who didn't even bothered to look at him as he accepted it. Tyler thought he heard a disinterested thank you coming from the man but he didn't acknowledge it as he simply turned around and walked into the dark cold night.

He opens the pack of cigarettes he had just bought and took a cigarette out, putting it between his teeth before grabbing a lighter from his pocket. He rolls the cigarette with his tongue until it's placed carefully between his swollen burned lips and while a hand blocked out the cold wind, the other one lit it up. Tyler puts the pack inside of the left pocket of his long black coat along with the lighter. He sucks in the tobacco before his fingers found their way up to take the cigarette out of his mouth so he could blow off the toxic gray smoke. He continues walking through the empty street, illuminated by the lights of the old lamp posts, until he founds a bench, on which he decides to sit down.

Tyler crosses his legs like a little kid and lets his long coat fall onto the ground as he puffs on his cigarette one more time. He looks ahead but doesn't really know what he's staring at. He observes the smoke coming out of his mouth as it floats on the thin air before it vanishes completely. He takes one more turn.

"That's bad for your health, you know."

Tyler feels someone sit next to him after hearing the masculine voice speak. He puffs on the cigarette again and stays quiet for a few seconds, breathing out the smoke. The lamp above him kept switching off and on. Finally, he turns his head to the side, finding a guy, staring off into space just like he had been previously.

The first thing Tyler notices about him is his messy bright red hair, moving lightly with the breeze. He examines him, taking everything in. The guy is wearing black clothes and clearly worn out combat boots placed securely on the ground, and his left hand was drumming on his knee. The stranger lifts his hand towards his mouth and Tyler ironically sees a half smoked cigarette between his fingers. He chuckles, turning back to the big family house in front of them and raises his own cigarette to his mouth as well and breathes the smoke around the tip before mumbling, "Everything is bad for our health if we don't control it." The guy nods, even though Tyler couldn't see.

"Do you?" He asks dryly.

Tyler chuckles again, shaking his head and looks down at the shiny red tip of his cigarette before tapping lightly on top of it with his index finger, the gray ashes falling down to the ground.

"No, not really."

He stopped controlling it a long time ago.

He glances at the red haired who was still not looking at him and he catches him taking the cigarette out of his mouth. Tyler watches his lips part and smoke come out of his mouth, slowly but firmly. And he thinks all that seemed brought out of a 80's movie or simply the way the man's lips moved looked almost pornographic in a way Tyler couldn't explain.

But then the guy is turning to him too and he was able to see a ring on his nose. Smoke crossed paths on the air, coming from both their mouths and noses.

"Me neither." The stranger agreed, his jaw stiffening but his expression still managing to look the calmer Tyler thinks he's ever seen. "Why?"

The light of the lamp post blinks again, illuminating the stranger's face and red hair as soon as it turned them back to black.

Tyler shrugs, playing with the cigarette on his hand."Got stuff on my mind."

They look at each other and stay in silence.

"I'm Josh." the red head offers him a hand and Tyler shakes it, nodding. Neither of them smile, but they didn't feel any lack of kindness behind their straight faces.

"Tyler."

Josh resumes to look ahead again and Tyler decides to do the same. Josh puts his hands inside the pockets of his sweater after throwing the tip of his cigarette to the ground and stepping on it. Minutes later, Tyler was doing the same.

"My roommate is a pain in the ass." Josh suddenly speaks like Tyler was actually interested, light smoke mixed with his hot breath cutting into the freezing night. "He crashed a party tonight and thought it would be a great idea to bring his one night stand home and fuck her in the kitchen." venom drips from his short laugh "Besides not being able to sleep because of those two screaming like dying fucking rats," he pauses and kicks a couple of small rocks with his feet "I got shit on my mind too." He looks at Tyler when he says this and sends him a quick small smile that Tyler would almost certainly not catch if he hadn't been staring at the way Josh's lips moved when he talked.

"Life sucks, uh" Tyler comments, looking up to Josh's eyes.

"Yeah pretty much." Josh stares back.

And it's scary. The way two strangers simply sit in a confortable silence, staring and looking at each other like they were in love or like neither of them had ever seen someone the same gender before, bonding over unsaid words and tobacco. Tyler feels his stomach twist in anticipation and he suddenly feels a rush of adrenaline and all he wants to do his run away with that man sat by his right side that clamed to be called Josh.

For all he knows he could be lying about that and his name is actually something along the lines of Sebastian.

He doesn't look like a Sebastian though.

"One day we'll all get away from it." Tyler breathes out before he could stop himself.

"When that day comes I wanna be dressed in white so God doesn't see my dick when I change into one of those angel clothes."

Tyler laughs, throwing his head back. And he knows that it hadn't even been funny, he knows that he probably looked crazy or even some kind of psychopath, but he still got tears on his eyes and his cheeks still hurt.

The light had stopped switching, apparently. It was dark now. The moon was there. Full moon. But it was dark.

"I don't think I'm going to heaven though, so might as well be dressed in red." Josh completed himself.

"You already got ahead of yourself with that Mohawk of yours then." Tyler smirks, tilting his head to the side and looking pointedly at Josh.

"Indeed."

The night felt even colder as the time passed but neither of them moved in search of warmth whether on their clothes or on each other. Tyler could feel his hands trembling so he puts them on his pockets.

"The day I die I want to be sit in front of my piano because then I'll be sure the last thing I saw was the only thing that never let me down." Tyler says, fishing another cigarette from his pack of cigarettes.

"I'd say we start a protest against human race and build a whole new world ruled by cats." Josh suggested, looking at the pack on Tyler's hand and Tyler takes one out to give him. "Thanks" he mumbles, putting it on the corner of his mouth and grabbing his lighter from the back pocket of his black skinny jeans, throwing it to the air and catching it before lighting the cigarette up.

"I'd support you" Tyler says quietly, after lighting his own cigarette, putting the pack and the lighter back on his pocket "if it was ruled by dogs."

Josh gasps beside him and Tyler can feel his wide eyes on him.

"Dogs?! No way man. And here I thought you were a cool guy..."

Tyler chuckles, feeling the smoke float inside his mouth and going down his body, obnoxiously intoxicating his lungs. He smirks, raising an eyebrow as he looks at Josh, who's not looking back.

"You can never judge a book by it's cover."

Josh looks at him and shrugs before smirking as well. "Guess not."

And apparently his face is closer to Tyler's than any of them thought because as he talks, smoke escapes through his mouth and hits Tyler's face. Tyler breathes it in, unconsciously.

"I never chose to be like this." Tyler says, his own smoke hitting Josh as well "Take it or leave it."

Josh moves his head away from Tyler's, not much, but enough to don't let the smoke of his cigarette cover his new acquaintance's face. He puffs on his cigarette, looking at Tyler's eyes.

"I'll take it."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me a while but here it is.

His phone rings and Tyler curses under his breath. He lets the device ring while his eyes stay closed and he breathes in the sent of the fresh clean covers keeping him warm and he briefly thinks his mother must had changed his bed the last time she visited, since he doesn't remember doing it. He blocks out the ringing sound and focuses on his own calm breaths coming out to mix with the darkness of his room.

The phone is still ringing. The sound crawls up Tyler's ears and installs itself on his head, claiming it as its territory. He turns his head slightly just to look at the glowing numbers on his nightstand.

3:23

The phone stops ringing.

He can quietly hear his breaths now without trying much.

His eyes close again slowly when he lets his cheek rest softly on his pillow. The darkness consumed and he let the peace fill him up.

But the phone rings again.

It's short this time.

It's a message.

 

_its freezing out here. open the fucking door_

 

His eyes read through the letters and words on the screen of his phone until something hits his window. Tyler frowns. He wants to sleep. He chooses to ignore the situation and puts his phone back on the nightstand, sinking down on his bed sheets. He listens as small tack's come from his window and it's such a small and delicate sound that it reminds of him of rain.

The phone buzzes again.

 

_are you going to let me continue throwing rocks at you window like romeo or are you letting me in_

 

And Tyler sighs, sitting up on his bed and rubbing his eyes, collecting his thoughts and making sure he remembers how to walk before getting up. He opens the window slowly and looks down. As expected, Josh is looking up back at him, hand closed in a fist, probably holding a bunch of rocks to throw, cigarette in his mouth.

"What are you doing here?" Tyler whisper-shouts against the cold night. The last thing he wanted was to wake up his grumpy neighbors.

Josh, on the other hand, doesn't seem to care. "Just open the fucking door!" He shouts, cigarette still on his mouth.

Tyler takes a moment to look at this almost still stranger who desperately wants to get inside his house. He's wearing a black t-shirt and black skinny jeans in the middle of the winter, standing tall above the same worn out black combat boots. In the few days Tyler has known him, he honestly didn't seem to bother much with the freezing weather.

Tyler doesn't want to leave a sleeveless Josh outside in the cold but the thought of letting him in isn't appealing either.

"Go away, Josh." He thinks this is probably the part where he's supposed to walk away and close the window, leaving him, ignoring him and pray that he'll go away. But he can't get himself to move, even when he's shirtless and feels the cold wind contact with his warm skin. Instead he finds himself leaning against the window sill and watching Josh take silent puffs of his almost completely smoked cigarette.

"That's bad for you health, you know." Tyler laughs at his own poor come out, because that was supposed to be Josh's joke and one that should only be used once.

He can't quite distinguish because of the distance between them, but he thinks Josh his rolling his eyes before throwing the cigarette to the ground and stepping on it. Josh opens his fist and takes something from it. Tyler looks at him with confusion until he sees him push his arm back and aiming to his window and he widens his eyes.

"What?! No, Josh! Don't even think about it." He tries, but it's too late, because Josh is already throwing the rock and Tyler can't move to save his life, standing still and squeezing his eyes and body, until he hears the rock hit something, but not his body. He looks at the wall beside him and laughs mockingly, looking down at Josh to smirk at him, even though he knows he might not even see it, but catches Josh already fishing another cigarette from his pack and not looking back him or even a bit affected with the fact that he didn't hit Tyler like he probably originally thought.

Tyler frowns. "What's up, Josh?" He asks, now with concern, suddenly the feeling of not wanting to open the door of his warm home going way, and not only because leaving him in the freezing weather would be practically murder.

Josh lights up his cigarette, taking the first hit before looking up at Tyler. "Let me in and I might tell you."

Without any other word, Tyler crawls off the window and closes it, quickly throwing on a t-shirt and then running down the stairs. He opens the door to find Josh now sat on the grass, pulling it off. He wants to tell him to stop because he actually likes the way his front garden is and has no intentions of change it, but he chooses to ignore it.

"Josh" he calls, shivering when the cold hit his bare arms.

Josh looks up and sighs, getting up and making his way in, entering almost like he owned the place. He went to walk up the stairs but stopped suddenly, slowly glancing at Tyler, silently asking for permission and he took Tyler a nod to see Josh rush up the stairs and into Tyler's bedroom. Tyler couldn't do anything but follow this acquaintance into his own house. He finds Josh spread on his bed, breathing soundly, hands on his chest, the cigarette stuck between his index and middle finger while the others tapped a random beat.

"Josh" he says this person's name for the second time in a row, wanting to call his attention.

"Let's run away."

It's not the first time Tyler hears those three words being spoken directly to him. He never thought anything about them because they were always said in meaningless occasions by meaningless people, which turned them into meaningless words. But Josh, indescribably somehow, made them sound just a little less meaningless. However, Tyler still laughs because it's still a dumb thing to want.

"What are you talking about, Josh?" His voice sounds a bit shaky because he's still chuckling.

"I'm serious." Josh hasn't moved yet and Tyler starts to think he has a speaking dead man on his bed. "Imagine it, though. Just you and me. Getting in a train to God knows where, and going around the world doing God knows what... Just... away."

Tyler decides to sit on the edge of the bed, close to Josh's neck. Smoke is coming from Josh's fingers and hitting Tyler's face and then spreading around the room. "You're insane Josh."

Josh lifts his fingers, carrying the cigarette to his red lips and sucking on it to bring his hand back down to his chest to meet the other, as he blew the smoke out of his mouth. Josh's lips had never looked so red and swollen and Tyler couldn't remove his eyes from them. "Maybe." He shrugs. "Still think we should do it, though." His eyes find Tyler's and Tyler sees himself obligated to stop staring at Josh's lips to look back at his eyes.

"Why?"

Josh's eyes instantly avoid Tyler's and find comfort on his piano on the corner of the room. "Nothing" he says truthfully "I'm just tired." He looks back at Tyler's eyes who were already fixed on his own.

And Tyler doesn't know what to do and he doesn't know what to thing or say. Because what he wants to do it's probably not right and not what he thinks he should do. He doesn't think much when he feels Josh's cold hands find their way up his neck and his freezing fingers crawl into the small patch of hair. He doesn't say anything when Josh is pulling him down slowly and his eyes are fixed on his, while he unconsciously gives him permission to push him all the way down until he's feeling the smoke of the tobacco against his own lips and he's smelling the coldness and the rain and the dirt and the doubt and the numbness. And he doesn't know if he did the right thing by brushing his lips lightly against Josh's, eyes still open but watching Josh's close slowly. He tries to do the same because maybe he doesn't have to see what he wants to do. His hands tightly grip Josh's t-shirt at his sides because he's too afraid of holding on to his body because Josh just might disappear if he does it. They're just close to each other, neither of them doing much than occasionally touch the other's lips almost as an accident.

Until Josh decides to get up and push Tyler carefully to the bed instead. He puts the cigarette on the bedside table so he could place a hand on Tyler's waist and take the other to his cheek, softly caressing, letting his thumb tickle his skin and then his lips.

"You're so beautiful." Josh whispers. But it's so quiet that it seems more as he's speaking to himself than actually to Tyler.

Tyler looks at Josh's eyes, a bit scared of what's happening. But he still can't get himself to stop it. He hesitantly wraps his hands around Josh's neck and tries to push him down to his lips. But stops suddenly, afraid of touching him. He's about to unwrap his hands from Josh when Josh is closing the small gap between them. Tyler feels Josh's lips slowly and softly move against his own but he can't kiss him back, for some reason. Just like he can't run away with him. It's just some random idea that will go away when Josh wakes up the next morning. So he pushes Josh's chest up, making him disconnect their lips.

Josh blinks, looking innocently down at him. "Did I do something wrong?"

And Tyler actually wants to cry, as pathetically as that sounds. He shakes his head, not trusting his own voice and Josh is suddenly backing away completely like Tyler had some kind of contagious disease and he frowns, not quite understanding why, until he thinks that he probably pushed Josh again. He whimpers in the back of his head, missing the comfort of the other boy's body warmth above his own.

"I..." Josh tries to speak but the voice comes out shaky and he clears his throat. "Tyler... what- what's wrong?"

Tyler groans, slapping his hands on his face and frankly rubbing them up and down. "I just..." He has his hands on his face as he speaks so the words come out like he was wrapped inside a plastic bag almost complete closed. Which is not very different from how he's feeling right now. "I... Why are you here?" As he asks the question, he removes his hands from his face to look at Josh, but doesn't dare to get up from the bed. No, he's too ashamed to do that.

Josh seems taken aback by the question and Tyler doesn't understand why because it was a simple one and should have a simple answer. But Josh struggles with his words like a baby who's learning how to speak, and he grabs the red hair above his head and it doesn't even feel like his own hair at the moment anymore, it feels more as an attachment. "I don't... I don't know..."

At this, Tyler sits up, facing him. "You don't know?" He spits dryly and Josh shifts uncomfortably in the bed, just to get up.

"No, I..." He pulls at the red _attachment_ on his head and his face looks hopeless and confused. And tired. He looks so tired.

"Is this some kind of joke to you?" The words are spilled before Tyler can stop them.

"What?" Josh looks even more confused than before and looks at Tyler with wide eyes, almost like he's afraid. "What do yo-"

Tyler cuts him before he could finish his question. "You meet me in a bench, you are all different and stuff than next thing I know, you're taking me to parties and I'm meeting your filthy friends and then I find myself letting you in my house and then you're in my bed, kissing me and I-" It's now his turn to pull at his hair and he gets up, pacing around the room. And he can't breath but he's not finished yet and there's still so much to say. "I've seen the way you look at girls, they're all just gum to you! Gum that is given to you in a gold plate and that you can chew and throw away! Do you even know with how many girls you've slept with?!" He pauses to look at Josh but doesn't even let him answer. "Of course you don't!" He answers himself in exasperation. "And what am I, uh? Am I a gum too? Am I a different flavor on the market that you suddenly decided to try? And what if you don't like it? Are you just going to throw me away to the garbage and never buy gums of the same fucking flavor again?!"

He's pacing on his room and he still can't breath because something is squeezing his chest and getting their hands down his throat and punching the inside of his rib cage. And Josh is just there standing and he should be doing something, he should be talking, he should be moving. But he's not, and he's not moving, but instead the room is moving and it's spinning and his cheeks are somewhat burning and he doesn't understand why Josh isn't speaking yet. And oh God he can't breath.

"WHAT AM I, JOSH?"

A pair of arms grab him, wrapping themselves tightly around his shoulders, making him stop and he angrily tries to fight back and escape but the grip is too strong and he's too weak and he has always been too weak. So Tyler gives up, falling limp on Josh's arms, punching Josh's chest with all the strength he's got in him because he's too weak and he doesn't want to feel weak. He doesn't realize he had been crying until Josh carefully lifts his chin up and runs his thumb through his cheeks, cleaning them away.

"I don't know." Josh answers, letting go completely of Tyler because he's too afraid of what might happen. Because Tyler is still mad and he knows he wants to stand by himself. Tyler wraps his arms around himself, looking around his room like someone lost, like he had never been there before. He didn't expect that answer. But he didn't really expected anything either. He just kind of... asked. "I don't know, Tyler." Josh repeats, trying to find Tyler's eyes. "I don't what you are or what the fuck I'm doing but you-" he bits his lip, giving an experimental step forward towards him "you're not gum, Tyler, you're not an experiment, I..."

Tyler tries to look at Josh and now he looks even more tired than before, the bags under his eyes are darker than the night outside the house, his skin paler than the morning sky and he looks so broken. His lips are still red and swollen though. And there's still smoke leaving his mouth as he speaks. He wants Josh closer, but he's to scared.

"Are you going to leave me?"

Deep down, he knows Josh can't answer that. And he can't say no, he won't say no, because he doesn't know what the future brings. He can't say no. And Tyler knows it.

But he just want to kiss Josh.

But he can't. He knows he can't. And he won't.

But Josh's eyes have a little spark in them and Tyler knows that it will be alright. They will be alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So if you want me to add story between these two chapters, to actually see what happened between Josh and Tyler, tell me and I'll write them.
> 
> Thanks for reading, ily


End file.
